


The Black Beast of Fell

by TheBloodyShark



Series: Chronicles of Draisath [1]
Category: Chronicles of Draisath
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Blood and Gore, Bonds, Dragon Riders, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, Fellbeast, Gay Love, Immortality, Lesbian Princess's, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Mentions of Slavery and Domestic Abuse, Minor Character Death, Morally Ambiguous Characters, Royalty, Sexual Tension, Tags May Change, fae, fire drakes, ice dragons, mythical creatures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 13:18:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15663993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBloodyShark/pseuds/TheBloodyShark
Summary: Abraxas shook his head, dark hair glinting in the torch light. He was a collection of hard lines and forged edges- sharp jaw, lean build, wool cloak and leather framed in metal. He was laughing, a sound like stone of stone, the rock salt rasp that ripped across the dungeon like thunder. His body was outlined by his companion, a striking contrast in the dark. White clashed with black that slithered like oil, a blaze at his back, and looking like something pulled from a nightmare. Rhys wasn't quite sure what it was, the thing that forced his eye to draw near and made his skin sing. The prince was a dangerous man, another wolf in the woods, a grating flash of teeth and rustled fur hiding beneath the flesh of man. He supposed he wasn't any better, he was just good at hiding it. He didn't project that nature, but when those dark eyes turned on him and his teeth bared in a dangerous grin he swore he saw a flash of something divine. He supposed that these bars between them were a distinction between prey and predator, but that was a lie. Wolf as he was, he put a dragon in a cage and expected him to lay still.





	The Black Beast of Fell

Rhys had been traveling through the wood for days, following the brutal tracks of a oxenbeast, one that had apparently been wreaking havoc on a few families homes and leaving naught but blood and bones on otherwise pristine floors. He supposed he understood the meaning when Fair Folk called them Fellbeasts, aside from the small smatterings of blood you never once heard them or the screams, at least when they ate. Out in the forest, where everything hid from the impressive catlike creatures, they were loud and snarling. No dragons or wyrms lived in the Tuvusin Wood, the trees and foliage were to thick for even the smallest of their breed, but they made perfect habitats for the one creature that had taken its hold in a clawed hand and refused to let go. They were handsome beasts, if you saw them from afar and not as they bore down at you in your homes to devour you and yours. A feline face and leath frame, wide paws that were more mannish with the clawed fingers instead of rounded toes, a coarse mane not unlike that of a lions rumored to linger near the grassy plains near the borders of the Swampland and the Deserts with a tail to go along with it. They never varied in color, simply black with beady yellow eyes blank of any pupil or details, and lips that pulled back garishly to reveal long gums and wickedly long canines the size of a man’s middle finger and just as thick. They were actually quite easy to find, when they walked their mannish fingers would curl and they would walk on their knuckles, leaving distinct impressions in the leaf litter and mud of the ever rainy wood, it was killing them that was the problem. It wasn’t because they have nigh impenetrable hide, or breathed some deadly thing or another and kept you at a distance, no not at all. It was because they were fast and unafraid, quick on their horror inducing limbs and flexible enough to make him question if they had a spine or not, he had even gone as far as to bleach meat off bones to find out and the fact that they did disturbed him all the more. It was also the fact that they got into your space, didn’t sway back and wait like other beasts, sensible beasts, they went straight for the kill and did not stop until whatever it was they targeted was good and dead. It took a quick blade or a steady hand on a bow to kill them, he certainly had a few scars when he didn’t get a dagger from its sheath quick enough. He didn’t have that problem now, even at eighteen winters alive, he was sharper then most with his kills to prove it and make many wary of him. You didn’t just seek out a oxenbeast, especially if you were raised in the wood away from the taxing protections of the kingdoms, because you weren’t supposed to survive the encounter.

He had been seven, when he first saw the skull of a oxenbeast on the mantle of a mans shop, a rundown place that sold goods for traveling and not much else. He had been fascinated, asked the man what it was, followed by how he killed it, because surely when you had the skull you did the deed. The man has laughed at his young naive self, told him he didn’t kill it and if he couldn’t help it he would never look at the damn thing again, because that skull held a sad tale. It had been a cold winter, stories of a black wraith ripping through the small town they were visiting and a sudden influx of disappearances following each and every sighting made. The mans brother had been one, and by the time one of the guard from the distance city, a good two hundred miles away, all they found of him was a pool of dried blood and neat clothes still hanging on bare bones. The guard himself had been attacked, and he had been lucky enough to have been awake and holding his sword, a lucky strike that lopped off the head of the thing when it frightened him enough to lose all semblance of his training and flail the thing around like some fawn learning to walk soon after its birth. It had been something he, at his wee age, had been so utterly besotted with that it never quite left him alone. It got worse the older he became, that utter fascination at the one thing that was utterly taboo to talk about let alone seek out, and his mother always claimed it came from the mark, his gift from the gods. He thought it a curse, because it left him empty. It was something he couldn’t even see, although his mother was quit the artist and had sketched it out for him once, something he always kept with him. It was of a stem of flowers, lilies and carnations on a single branch and a serpentine beast coiled over it. The flowers themselves were red, rich in color and its stem outlined much the same way, but the serpent was in white and it stood out against his skin hidden as it was. The beast itself was long, fins short and near its head and a single sail serrated alongst it’s only edge, an elongated mouth with sharp teeth more at home in the mouth of a dog, wide and round eyes dead and long missing in color. It made his mother hide him, away from his father who had mysteriously died, though he was certain he knew exactly how he had died. Claiming it was a Mark of Idrilis, the foreign god to whom he prayed, one no longer followed by man. He thought she hid him because of his looks, the pointed ears that belonged more to fae myths of elves, and tall and lean frame that towered over most men. His eyes though, his eyes were the most defining and haunting part of his face, aside from the aristocratic features he knew neither of his parents bore. They were blue to his families brown, aye that alone with startling by the sheer depth of the color, but it was the deep and haunting purple that ringed his pupil that startled most who met his gaze. It wasn’t a light violet, something some royals had, it wasn’t a soft indigo that made him look kind, it was like midnight. It was like a royals robes and cloaks, dark and rich and so aggressively there in all that blue you couldn’t help but stare. He knew, it’s why he hid here in the woods, chasing an obsession started all because his mother couldn’t bare to show the world a son so unique to them all. So when his mother stated that his obsession came from that twice damned mark, he laughed, and it wasn’t a nice one. It was sardonic and sad, something that shouldn’t exist in the lungs of such a young man, but it did and so it was. He hunted these beasts, studied them, because they were simple. They weren’t men, they followed simple things and didn’t do much else. Oh they grieved, he had seen and heard a fellbeast scream, what a blood curdling sound it was, over the dead body of its mate before it too joined them in an eternal rest. Yet they did not rally, they did not banish, they did not follow rulers, they simply were. They hunted, they killed and overstuffed themselves like a gorging pig, but they never deviated and hunted for sport. 

So, yes, he had decided a week prior he was going to go out hunting and continue on living like the beasts he hunted. They were his life, and they would be until one day he couldn’t get that blade in his hand quick enough or his bones failed on him and he died in the field, at least he knew they would actually do something to his body that was of some use. He made a living off of them, stripped them of their pelts, ate their meat in a funny twist of fate, used their fang and claws for odd bits and ends, and showed their heads to whatever town needed one to be killed and got paid that way. Money lasted a long way for him, because when you lived in the wood and constantly traveled, you weren’t exactly expected to pay taxes because you never once stood still enough to let them catch you. He was probably the only one on this profession, chasing nightmares with a manic grin on his face, sweat on his brow and blood on his hands and he’d likely be the last. Townsfolk liked him well enough, despite his deceptive appearance, because when he came to play the beasts ran away. It was sweet actually, some of the children whose families had nearly been killed only for him to bring back the beast who did the deed, fell over themselves and clung to his dirty leather trousers like limplets whenever he passed through specific towns. It reminded him of the childhood he wanted to have, and now that he was of age and had escaped the brunt of childish hatred, he was shown their curiosity. He always avoided showing them his eyes, because even if he liked them, his mother had instilled that suffocating paranoia of how some knight would drag him off and place him before a King for a reason he wouldn’t know. He didn’t think he could have lived through that trip, he wasn’t made for crowds, and he certainly detested the dragons he saw locked away like slaves. Oh yes, they were magnificent if you got that rare chance to see them, but the look in their eyes and the scars of spurs and whip marks took away from it. They lacked that wild glint, the feral intent he saw every time he walked into the woods, one he reflected in his own. They were slaves to their masters, though there were some he had seen up close that were at the very least half of what their wild ancestors truly were. It had been a vibrant seafoam colored dragon in one of the major towns he had been passing through, Biktoyth if he dared to remember their name, walking along the outskirts of town near the wood. He had been startled, the lean beast had loped up to him like an overjoyed dog, gibbering about his odd smell and queer choice of dress that day. It had been fascinating, but he heard the call of their rider and he had made himself scarce. He had caught glimpses of wild dragons, at a distance when he had dared to near the mountains, great winged beasts incomparable to anything he had ever seen. Mighty roars that echoed even at a distance, the glint of scales and flash of teeth that brought that rush back to him, the manic glee.

That same glee was there now, when he heard the whisper of feet on the ground that years of hard won training and survival had taught him, the odd grumbling hiss of the monster he was hunting ripping through the glen. That was wrong though, it set him off, something was very wrong with the forest. A mile before everything was alive, the calls of birds, the breeze at his back, the chattering of foxes and the milling deer scrambling away at his pass. None of that was here, the only sound his breathing, the soft patter of rain, the hiss of his target. It disturbed him, because if there was silence where there should be sound, that meant something else was in the wood. Something bigger then the fellbeast, and truly there was only ever one creature in all of Draisath that could garner such a reaction. That unsettled him, because there was only three breeds of dragon that dared stray this far from their territories and risk their lives with the brutal Neosan border patrols always lingering in the sky outside the wood. He had moved on, hand on his bow, arrow knocked and the string drawn taught but held low. His arms were as lax as they could be, shoulder and arrow point shifting foliage as he moved on, the quiet buzz of mania normally locked away suddenly spiked and swirled at the back of his mind like excited chatter. Then he heard it, a soft string of cursed and grumbles, the shift of something large and the bitter tang of blood drifting in the air. He picked up his pace, clearing that last bit of wood until he came upon a sight that took his breath away.

A dragon lay before him, scales darker then a moonless night, steam curling from it’s nostrils and framing an angular face with wicked horns. Destruction lay around them, trees snapped and shattered, splinters spread across burnt grass, the broken body of a fellbeast splattering unjustly over the vile claws he could see coming from the dragons feet. Bloody wings were awkwardly splayed against the broken forest, a swath of darkness where there was usually beams of light, gouge marks near the very end of the sail and looking rather nasty against everything else. The head of the dragon was different, more feminine, he supposed it was a female. There were golden rings that looked like they were pierced through her curling horns, as well as an intricate cuff around her left forelegs wrist, depicting the shape of mountains with small winged figures flying over the etched mists. Everything about her was fascinating, he felt humbled by the sheer size of her, with a head was was larger then he was tall and had a maw of glistening white teeth. Yet, the true beauty of it all, was her eyes. They were that same purple that swirled in his own, so rich and unique against all that black, it made him choke. The sound must have been louder then he thought, because that massive skull snapped to face him, scaled lips curling and steam hissing at dagger like fangs. The fingers on his bow string slowly relieved it of its tension, arrow pointed down to the ground until it simply fell from the taut string and pattering against the soft earth. His knees bent, movements slow and hesitant as he stared down the behemoth whose head was tilted but no less aggressive. He wasn’t fond of the idea of being somewhat weaponless, despite the fact any attacks he made would ultimately be useless. His bow was quick to follow, set on the ground and his frame taking a few steps away, though that was a few steps closer to a steaming maw. If he survived this, he certainly wouldn’t have said that he squawked like an overgrown bird when the dragoness shoved her head closer to him, salivating jaws dangerously close to his face. He could feel the heat of the flames that swirled beneath those dark scales, see the muscles jumping and twisting sinuously beneath her skin, smell the wood and smoke that rushed from her nostrils like a swift summer breeze. Munsell colored eyes staring down into his own, his reflection staring back at him in dumbfounded amazement, but what followed was something different. He knew dragons could talk, he had heard their voices before, but this was something else. Her was a sultry purr, demanding but there was something hidden beneath all of it, like a croon mothers would give to a gurgling babe. Her breath was like brimstone, hot and encompassing, but it comforted him like his Marahs embrace.

“Your a Tsvaare’d, my Tsvaare’d. Do you understand what that means, Little Mahtar?” She seemed hesitant, as if afraid of him of all things. His lips stuttered, heart clenching and his fists curling at his sides.

“Bonded, what do you mean by bonded?” He managed to choke out, because surely she didn’t mean that? He had heard tales about bonded, though there was only one that told of wild dragons. A single story, the kind that spoke of pain and the loss of innocence, ripping out everything that made a man and turning them into something far more. It was frightening, but the singing mantra at the back of his head was shrieking like a choir, making him tremble and ache with something he had always known was there but learned to ignore. The only way he could put it into words, was longing. An itch beneath his skin, twitch of his always restless hands, the shuffle of his feet and the rolling of his shoulders. She seemed to notice, for her eyes seemed to open just a tad more from their lidded states and her face pressing closer. Heat fanned at his face, his throat suddenly dry and his skin was surely an ugly pallor.

“You know what is means, Madadh. You feel it, the call of the wild, the vibrations beneath your flesh. You are kitral, Carmine Blessed, kissed by the beast and beloved by the queen.” There was such reverence in those words, so many gods whispered on a tongue like silver, sliding around his ears like a prayer. So much love, so many emotions that built like water on a dam, and he felt like he was going to break. She shifted, her hulking frame curling closer, forcing broken trees and debris away as she tried to near him. Some scaled part of her brushed near his leg, and he screamed. 

The pain that he was plunged into by that single touch was like the gates of hell itself, the gods plunging their hands into his soul and twisting. It scorched all that he was and all that he knew, lit his body alight and flooding his blood with fire. It felt like ash filled his lungs, every breath stinging and straining, a gritty and rasping howl rocking his chest. It felt like heated iron pressed against his skin, the serrated pain of claws in his flesh, the harsh slap of leather against his back. It felt like knives were being driven into his eyes, his bones being ground together and snapped like twigs. He had dropped to his knees, if the rocks and splinters biting into his shins were anything to go by. His fingers curled in the earth, soil and leaf litter sliding beneath his nails and pressing against his palms. He was crying, just as he was screaming and wailing with pain, but there was somebody else's anguish mixing with his own. A bitter roar shook the ground beneath him, a voice like bellowing thunder echoing in his head, the sound that chased away the flaming trails that hollowed out the blood beneath his veins. The pain was receding like the tide, as did his consciousness, but the last thing he saw was a flash of purple.

**Author's Note:**

> Draisath and all of its characters belong to me, the author, and should not be used for profitable works or placed anywhere else without my explicate permission.


End file.
